The Cedar Room
by LeaveMeHypnotized
Summary: One-shots revolving around relationship-questions, some serious, some not so much, mostly backstory. Characters involved are listed at the beginning of each individual chapter.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **This is gonna be a collection of one-shots all starting with or circling around questions that - according to my doctor's waiting room magazine - everyone should ask their partners before thinking about getting into a serious relationship. I thought it was fun to write fics to a couple of them. Although I'm not going to concentrate only on romantic relationships here. The characters involved will be listed at the beginning of each individual chapter.

* * *

><p>(Mark, Addison, Derek, Naomi, Sam)<p>

_If you could change something about me, anything, what would it be?_

Mark takes a moment to look at his friend with professional eyes. They are sitting with their lunch bags outside on the grass, because the weather is always better after vacation, when you have to go back to med school and actually no time to enjoy the sun despite during short breaks like this one.

Derek was joking, of course, challenging him like always, wondering if he will go for it. But he does. He said he wants into plastics, he will stick with it.

"Your nose."

"What?" Derek looks at him stunned, partly regretting that he asked, Mark guesses and smirks at Addison who bursts out into laughters next to her dazzled boyfriend. She drops on her back, holding her stomach, her shimmery red hair complementary to the green grass.

"It has a little bump, you know. And from the side it looks hooky."

Sam's eyes wander from one friend to the other, as Addison's laughing gets louder and gaspier by the second. "Can't... breathe...," she manages and it's unclear if Naomi is also laughing about Derek's face or Addison, as she pulls her up only to let her drop again, because laughing persons are heavy and slack and not cooperative.

"Dude, what did you expect? Nothing?" Mark defends himself, raising his eyebrows, chuckling, but not helping Derek's mouth to close again. He likes this, that the joke is not on him for once. Not that he is offended when Derek makes fun of his girlfriends and that he is unable to stay in a relationship for longer than a month, he can take that, but sometimes it gets a little too one-sided with the golden boy.

"My nose isn't _hooky_. Right, Addie?" he searches for support next to him, mock-offended and maybe a little more, finding that his girlfriend is still rolling on the ground, already looking dangerously red-faced.

"It is a little," Sam says diplomatically and shrugs and Naomi's hand is on his neck in an instant, squeezing it softly. Mark looks away and catches Addison's gaze before she turns to Derek, nudging his shoulder, still smiling and catching her breath. Sometimes he feels as if he doesn't belong. "What about me?" she says then, her eyes curious and ridiculously clear blue, almost like the sky above them. "What would you change about me?"

He swallows. _Nothing, Red. You are perfect_, he thinks, but throws her his trademark smirk. "I'm not telling you that."

She grins. "Why not? I can take it." And then, "Come on, Mark, I can!"

"But Derek will hit me and hurt his hand." That is probably not even a lie.

Derek snorts and Mark thinks this mock-offended-thing is getting old, but Addison chuckles anyway and lays her head on Derek's shoulder, her eyes fixed on Mark though. "Okay, _that_ I understand."

_No, you don't_, he thinks, but winks at her as the fun flirty guy is. He can't blame her, sitting there, letting Derek play with her fingers.

_They do make a great couple_, he thinks. _Try to be happy for them_.

XXXXX

The next time he hears the question, it's more than a decade later and it surprises him, because, well, it's more than a decade later. He's is an accomplished plastics surgeon now, part of his job is to make the world a prettier place if he wants to admit it or not, and his eyes are actually more qualified to answer to that than in med school, but it pains him to even think about it.

He knows that she doesn't mean it that way, that she just wants to know the answer he's been withholding for so long. Her hair is shorter, the skin around her eyes creases a little when she laughs, the same with the skin around her mouth when she is dead serious. That's all that has really changed. The way she looks at him now, half smile, tired and yet curious – it's not even visible. What is visible though is the bitterness in her eyes, where idealism had its place, loneliness where happiness used to be. He knows how to restore the latter, but not for good, and there is no help for the first.

But his answer is still the same, it will always be the same, and this time he can say it. "Nothing, Red. You are perfect."

He thinks it's surprise that flickers and mixes up the greyish blue in her eyes for a moment. And he thinks that she understands.


	2. Chapter 2

(Mark, Addison, Naomi, Sam, Archer, Derek. Also Savvy and Weiss.)

_How much sex do you need?_

Archer lets out a loud laughter and claps his hands next to her.

"More than Derek can handle I guess. She is still my sister."

He is drunk and she ignores him. They are all drunk to be honest, some more, some less, but all of them have had their fair share of alcohol. It's Labour Day. It's the Hamptons.

Naomi lies slack on the ground between Sam and Archer, more dead than alive, face heated, eyes watery and red and it won't take long until the tequila in her system makes it way out again, Addison can tell. Savvy, on Addison's right side, is all clingy and needy, arms wriggled around an unnerved Weiss, who never drinks anything but beer when Derek isn't around. She thinks it's cute. He has even cut his hair so it looks like Derek's, but she pushed an elbow into Mark's side when he wanted to comment on that earlier. Right, Mark. He sits on the other side of the circle, throwing her his trademark grin and lifting an expectant eyebrow. The card in his hand isn't his fault of course and neither is the bottle pointing to her, and it's a stupid game, really, though nobody was protesting when Savvy suggested it an hour and far too many drinks ago.

But the face he is giving her is all on him and she knows he enjoys this. He enjoys how most women blush within seconds when they feel his gaze on them, how their eyes turn to the floor in enraptured embarrassment. She has seen it a hundred times, maybe even more often than that. The first time on the Captain when she was six years old and her mother had hired a younger-than-usual nanny.

Not that it would work on her though, she's never abashed when somebody pays her attention and she is never the first one to look away, Mark knows that.

She licks her lips and smirks, the kind that is not a good idea, but Derek isn't here, he had to check on some patients first but will come as soon as he can, she knows the drill.

Mark's grin gets wider and Sam's mouth pops open a little in the corner of her eye and she knows Naomi would so disapprove if she was only in control of herself. But she isn't and Addison leans forward and props up on her arms, something borderline appropriate with the shirt she's wearing, depending on where you sit, and reaches for the glass with the saltsticks, her bottomless blue eyes locked on Mark's. He draws a sharp breath when she slides one into her mouth, and his facade shakes a little and that's all she ever wanted.

The crunch is loud when she bites down, because everyone else is so dead silent, but he doesn't blink and she credits him. He knows his game as well as she knows hers.

"A _lot_," she breathes, raising an eyebrow, hearing Weiss swallow next to her, feeling Archer's appreciative nodding behind her (somehow a little sluttiness always makes him proud), sensing the planks under her move as Sam uneasily shifts his position, yet only seeing Mark and the wicked in his eyes and something else that she doesn't want to think about.

She winks and he brings his hands to his sandy curls, still grinning widely, but slowly rolling his eyes. "Okay, Red, you win."

She laughs and gets back to her spot in the circle and then everyone else starts laughing too, somehow relieved and releasing tension.

"Hey, what's so funny?" Derek's voice comes nearer and she feels his lips on her head and tilts it back a little to see him all sober and freshly showered and looking so much more adult than the rest of them.

"Your wife is dangerous," Weiss says and gets up, obviously happy for some non-silly company, and Savvy rolls her eyes at Addison in a _Our husbands are so starched_-manner.

Derek runs his fingers through her hair slowly, smiling in an amused way that would make her angry if she was looking at him instead of Mark. "She is just drunk," he says and before anyone can listen to what Archer thinks of that, Naomi pukes savourily on his 500$ beach-pants.

_It was about time_, Addison muses.


	3. Chapter 3

(Amelia)

_When was the last time you did something for the first time?_

he asks and she laughs because she almost sixteen, always bored and always horny and her whole life is all about first time experiences right now. Tell her something crazy, she'll do it. They call her _hurricane_ and that's exactly what she's gonna be. Building up over the water of her endless tears they can't see, coming to the shore to destroy them all.

"I just did you for the first time," she says with a superior smirk that would make Addison proud if she was around to see it. No one's ever around any more though, they all have their own lives now, come to visit on Thanksgiving and Christmas and say that she can visit any time, but what's in for her when she changes one empty house for another? It's not nearly as much fun to be the only one left at home as she thought it would be.

Toby chuckles, she knows he's madly in love with her (too bad it's so one-sided), and gets up from the dirty mattress on the sandy ground of his flophouse of an apartment. He's a tall guy with long fingers, younger than all of her siblings, but old enough to buy cigarettes and alcohol and to have his own seedy place to grow weed.

He rummages in one of his big second hand sport bags he obviously uses instead of the broken closet in front of his window. There are no curtains and he likes it dark. Maybe that's why he keeps showing up since they met on Kathleen's wedding a few weeks ago. He was helping the barkeeper until he whispered something utterly filthy in Addie's ear and she blushed so hard, that Derek had him thrown out without ever asking what he'd said. He called her brother a _Fucking uptight motherfucker!_ and she followed him, feeling that they had some common ground.

A light flash of blissful happiness washes over his face as he finds what he's looking for and he holds up a plastic bag filled with tiny orange globes. Pills. Oxycodon, she'll learn later.

"When you count fucking me in, wait until you get a first taste of these little babies." He comes nearer and lets the bag fall into her hands, lets her feel them.

"They can take you to places you've never been before," he whispers, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear as she holds the bag up to her face, wondering what Addie would say if she saw her now, gazing at these pills like Mark gazes at her, his best friend's girlfriend. He'll never get her, even if he does, she'll never be his. The pills, however, all hers. A greedy smile spreads on her face.

"You're so beautiful," Toby says when she leans back barely two minutes later, the tip of her nose white from powder, thinking what a cliché he is for saying what they all say, as she realizes something in the back of her mind.

It's the first time she's high on pills. Yes. It's not the first time somebody told her how beautiful she is. No.

But it's the first time she actually believes it.


	4. Chapter 4

(Derek, Meredith, Addison)

_How many people have you had sex with before me?_

He takes a deep breath and runs his fingers through his dark waves. They are longer now, longer than two month ago, and it's funny that the person who always wanted him to grow his hair a little longer will never get to touch it again. Not ever. It's a satisfying thought, almost as satisfying as picturing her all alone in their stupid too big house with empty bedrooms for the kids they'll never have now, while he's having the time of his life with a flexible young intern. Maybe it's a cliché, but she started with the clichés and he has no surfaced regrets whatsoever.

"Derek?" Meredith has propped her head up on her hands and eyes him curiously. She has a right to be curious, he hasn't really told her much about himself yet, but he's still not at a point where he wants to talk about anything with anyone. Ignoring his wife's calls and fucking his intern's brains out is pretty much everything he can handle that doesn't involve a scalpel.

He turns his head towards her lying beside him and smiles. She's so young. She makes him feel young too. She makes him feel new. And most of all she makes him forget about the treacherous smell in his house, the stupid leather jacket that made him tumble, the not-so-subtle gasps he hadn't heard like this for so long before he opened his bedroom door, his best friend's fingers dug deep into his wife's long hair, her legs wriggled around his waist, her eyes before she noticed him and when she noticed him and all the other things that followed. All these pictures don't haunt him as much when he's surrounded by people who don't know shit about his life in New York, people that aren't Richard so to speak. Meredith. And that's why he keeps massaging the truth.

"Four," he says finally and waits for her reaction.

She lets out a light laughter. "Four?"

"Four," he nods with the smirk he knows she likes, because she's never seen Mark's smirk in comparison. "I was a late bloomer. And my last relationship was rather long." That's an understatement, but he doesn't care. Meredith is not as good at keeping strong eye contact as Addison and he's grateful for that. Another reason why she keeps making his life easier.

"What happened?"

He snorts and lets his eyes wander through the trailer, thinking.

_I'm just not ready yet. I'm sorry, honey. Let's just wait until I finish the fellowship, okay?_

_Can you come home early tonight?_

_I want you to care!_

_When did we stop fighting?_

_We can get through this, we're AddisonandDerek. _

He closes his eyes for a brief moment, concentrating on pushing her voice out of his head. The truth is, he doesn't really know what happened. Despite the fact that the two most important people in his life turned out to be an adulterous bitch and a backstabbing sociopath he doesn't really know anything any more. So the easiest answer would be that she cheated, but something prevents his lips from forming the words to say it. Maybe it's pride, maybe it's shame or maybe it's just another thing he doesn't know.

"I guess it was just over," he decides quietly and is glad that she doesn't ask any further, just snuggles her dainty body closer to him.

It's not until later that week, when he sits in front of the divorce papers he can't sign and just clicks and swings the ballpoint again and again without ever coming close enough to the paper to actually find his signature there, that he realizes it. Of all things he did and didn't tell her, saying it was over was probably the worst.


	5. Chapter 5

(Derek, Addison)

_Will you still love me when I'm old and wrinkly?_

"Addison." He sighs, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly. She can't see it anyway, since she's been standing in front of the bathroom mirror trying to get used to her new glasses for the last forty-five minutes.

He feels his eyelids getting heavier with every passing second, the soft cotton of their exquisite sheets enveloping him for the first time within the last four days. Somehow coming home early makes him tired like nothing else lately.

"What?" Her voice has a high pitch in it that rings in his head for far longer than the word lasts and he involuntarily flinches a little, feeling a headache building up.

"Would you please take a look at your parents?" he tells the half-closed bathroom door, unnerved. "You will never get old and wrinkly."

"Fine, then I'll just go blind," she counters, so much more awake than him it seems. He wonders when timing has become a problem between them; they used to be equally run down or giddy, used to fall into bed perfectly in sync or were sexing each other until they were exhausted enough to do that. He sighs again, two fingers gripping at the bridge of his nose, trying to focus.

"Some people get their first pair of glasses when they're seven, not thirty-seven, Addison. And besides, your parents aren't blind either." He's not sure whether she can even hear him, but too knackered to raise his voice any more. Also, it's not as true as it sounds. He knows how blind her parents are towards her, that they don't care that they haven't seen her for years since that last big fight he sat out and she doesn't want to talk about. He knows this and it has ripped his heart out many times until he decided to let it go for his own good.

_You wouldn't understand,_ she kept saying until he stopped asking. She's been a Shepherd for almost eleven years now, but he's never been a Forbes Montgomery. It's her family after all. And he probably wouldn't understand indeed.

"Would you please come to bed?" he tries again with the softest voice he can handle. He's used it a few hours ago to announce time of death. At least he bothers enough to wait until she's ready.

_Will you ever be ready? Just tell me and I won't ask again._

A wave of guilty relief washes over him as he hears the click of the light switch from the bathroom and he rolls over to turn the lamp on his nightstand off too, more than ready for a much needed dose of pure, dreamless sleep, and for a moment, a short, precious moment, everything is dark and silent and perfect. Then she hits her toe on the teakwood bed frame. _Damn it_.

"Damn it, Derek!" She hops on one leg, taking deep breaths to numb the pain and to keep from screaming and finally drops onto the mattress, examining her swollen pinky toe with a pout.

He groans as new rays of light from her side of the bed fill the room again and blinks a few times, eyes hurting. "So much for the new glasses," he can't stop himself from saying.

"Just shut up," she sniffs angrily and makes a half-hearted attempt to throw a pillow in his face.

"Like it's my fault," he mutters matter-of-factly and crawls closer to her, only now realizing that she's actually crying and half hating her for it. Her tears always get to him and she damn well knows this and he just wants to fucking sleep!

"Come on," he whispers, placing a sloppy kiss on her icy shoulder, "it's gonna be better in a few minutes."

She shakes her head slowly and slips under the blanket, glaring at him so mercilessly that he starts to wonder whether he missed something else despite the fact that the glasses look incredibly sexy on her.

"You know, we could-," he begins, but she just pulls the blanket tighter around herself and brushes him off without saying a word, leaving him a little clueless, because that's usually his move. Then she takes the glasses off and switches off the light and the room is dark again, just like he wanted.

"Good night," she mumbles nasally and he rolls to his side of the bed again.

It takes him three days to realize that he never really answered her question and when he does it feels too late to say something. He wouldn't know what.


End file.
